Do, online producer at Van Ons, attended UXInsight 2018 in Utrecht. He wrote about it so you are fully informed!

The Fabrique in Utrecht, an industrial location a stone's throw from Maarssen Station, was briefly the epicenter of User Experience Research on Thursday, March 8. There were talks and keynotes on various stages from leading speakers in the field, who shared their knowledge and encouraged conversation.

Were you unexpectedly unable to attend? Shame! Below are three takeaways for you, so you can still tell them on your nephew's birthday, at the coffee machine, or at Friday afternoon drinks.

1. You always have data

rethink is thinking in terms of opportunities and not problems. You turn a problem into a fact and a fact into a possibility. – Berthold Gunster.

In my opinion, the personification of rethinking is Gregg Bernstein, Principal Researcher at Vox Media. During his talk, he talked about his time at MailChimp, a service provider for marketing automation in the e-commerce sector.

He learned from experience that many companies would like to start with User Experience Research, but think they do not have enough data, or do not have the right data for it. Some of his talk; 'Be More Certain' was about the fact that data, both qualitative and quantitative, is often present in large numbers within the company. Below is a tip from Gregg who taught me that rethinking does not have to be so difficult!

Various divisions within your company have a gold mine of data;

Sales team

Before someone is a user of your product or service, they are a customer. A and/or end-users - before the person makes a purchase - the sales team will probably ask very different questions than one user of your product. Categorizing all these questions can ensure that you can improve your product or service and thus better approach both customers and users!

Customer Support

Who within your company knows better what is going on than the Customer Support heroes? They receive a huge load of valuable data from the users themselves. Perhaps all this information has not yet been mapped out, then it is high time to start! From this data you can look for low-hanging fruit to improve your product or service.

2. Text is not enough, use video to power your message

Jasper van Kuijk, in addition to being a comedian, he is also an Assistant Professor at the TU Delft, Faculty of Industrial Design. His presentation was a glimpse into his kitchen; the Expertise Center for E-ticketing in Public Transport. Continuous research is being conducted here into the different payment options when traveling by public transport.

Besides the fact that the presentation was very entertaining, it also provided some great insights. Jasper did this during 'Organizational drivers of user Experience' with very insightful diagrams. He also told us the following: Qualitative data in the form of text alone can work very well, but in some cases it can be placed in a completely different context. That is why Jasper encourages his students at TU Delft to always record qualitative data as video. Showing (parts of) these videos to a customer / stakeholder can have a lot of impact.

3. People are all human.

One of the most inspiring talks was that of Bas Raijmakers, Creative Director at STBY London & Amsterdam. In his story 'Reach Global, Love Local', Bas talked about his experiences gained during research around the world. Obviously with many differences between cultures, but also more than enough similarities. He concluded with the following strong quote.

People are all human, with human needs, ambitions, flows and achievements. That doesn't mean we're all the same though. Being different is human too. – B. Raijmakers